


Beyond the Treelines

by twilighteve



Series: Paranatural Hogwarts AU [3]
Category: Paranatural (Webcomic)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts AU, i guess, not good at tagging stuff, pnat hogwarts au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 22:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5982829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twilighteve/pseuds/twilighteve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max was somehow dragged into the Forbidden Forest, courtesy of Johnny and his gang. Hogwarts AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Treelines

Maxwell Puckett was an idiot. He couldn’t stress it enough, so he’d repeat it one more time; _Max Puckett was an idiot_.

He wondered sometimes how he could be so indifferent at one moment and easy to rile up in the next. Maybe it was all the weirdness of this so-called wizarding world finally getting to him. He didn’t know for sure. What he _did_ know was that what he was doing right now was dumb and he was an idiot for even thinking about doing it.

The day had started well enough. The long trip on the train that he had feared would be his death (out of sheer boredom it offered on a silver plate) turned out to be not-so-boring, with his encounter with Ed, Isabel, and Isaac. Ed and Isabel, having grown in a pureblood family, quickly fired off questions about the muggle world in quick succession once they found out Max was a muggleborn. Isaac, having a muggle father and witch mother, helped Max explain some of the trickier things that he couldn’t explain due to lack of knowledge regarding the wizarding world. The four became fast friends in what little span of time they had and boarded the same boat though the lake to reach the majestic castle that was Hogwarts.

Problem occurred when they reached the door leading to the Great Hall, though. Max, who had slipped out of his boat and taken a knee-deep dip at the lake, slipped on the stairs and accidentally planted his elbow into a redheaded boy’s face. Despite his apology – which he had to admit didn’t sound so genuine, damn his sassy mouth – the boy, Johnny, demanded a fight to ‘settle a score’, so to speak. Professor Walker cut them off, though, since it was time to enter the Great Hall and have them all sorted. Boy, was Max surprised to realized that the hat could talk directly into his mind. And a little disturbed, too. He hoped a talking object wasn’t a common thing in the wizarding world, because it would be more than ol’ plain disturbing if he was sleeping in the middle of the night and his bed suddenly decided to start singing.

He was sorted into the Slytherin house. Isabel was sorted into Gryffindor, Ed into Hufflepuff, and Isaac, Ravenclaw. Fortunately, Johnny was sorted into Gryffindor. Unfortunately, one of his friends, Stephen, was sorted into Slytherin together with him.

The Headmistress of Hogwarts was as eccentric as his acceptance letter indicated. If the tuxedo footie pajama she was wearing didn’t set him off, the bandage covering her head and hand and leaving no skin visible (heck, she might even have the bandage on her whole body) definitely did. And if that wasn’t enough, the speech she gave, especially the part about the Forbidden Forest, absolutely did.

“And don’t you forget about the Forbidden Forest, dear students,” she had said. “There are some _dangerous_ things in there.” The words alone sounded like a clear _do not approach that place_ advice, except she managed to make it sound almost like an invitation instead. The _wink wink_ at the end of the sentence was painfully obvious despite the fact that no one could see her eyes.

The feast was absolutely incredible though, and Max decided to pay the headmistress no mind. This wasn’t the first time he had to deal with eccentric headmaster, and he was certain he would be able to manage seven years of education under her… _guidance_. He did, however, notice that Stephen had been glancing at him every now and then. So it wasn’t really surprising that when they were all done and were to return to their dorms, Stephen pulled him aside and he was suddenly sandwiched between Ollie’s strong arms as Johnny, RJ, and Stephen all stood around him like a pack of hyenas, staring at their to-be-dinner.

“Hi?” Max managed to say, not knowing what else he should do.

“Listen, punk, we’re here to settle a score with you,” Johnny hissed to Max’s face. “So let’s settle a score.”

“Yeah, okay, but can I just say that I’m a pacifist, therefore cannot fight with you?”

“I’ll _pass a fist_ through your face,” Johnny grumbled instead. “We’re gonna have it settled one way or another, I tell you. So let’s go to the Forbidden Forest.”

Max’s brow shot up. “Uh, what part of _forbidden_ exactly do you not understand?”

“Live up a little! Rules are meant to be broken!”

“No, they really aren’t.”

“Are you really that scared of some rules?”

There was some _serious_ insult in there and before he knew it Max had already lashed out to Johnny, telling him that he wasn’t afraid of some stupid rules or some stupid bully. At that, Johnny  grinned and Ollie practically dragged him away. Max still mourned the fact that he took that obvious bait. Somehow, in the way there, Isaac got roped into coming with them. They managed to get out of the castle without problem (damn RJ and their ninja-like qualities) and made their way safely into the forest. They went a bit too deep into the lines of trees to Max’s liking, but absolutely nothing he or Isaac said could change their peer’s minds.

“I _really_ don’t want to fight or anything, Johnny,” Max insisted.

“Can’t we just get back to the castle?” Isaac added. “We’ll be in trouble if we’re caught.”

“Psh, you guys have no spine. What’s the worst that they can do to us?”

Both Max and Isaac glared.

They were still going deeper into the woods. It was already dark, but the shadows from the looming trees gave an eerie feeling to it all. At last, Isaac couldn’t take it anymore and blurted out, “Can we stop already? We’re too deep in the forest. We might get lost.”

It was only then did Johnny stop in his tracks. “Huh. Now that I think about it…”

“You really didn’t think things through, did you?” Isaac asked, tone helpless. “Let’s go back before we actually get lost.”

Johnny scratched his head before agreeing, “Yeah, that actually sounds like a good idea.”

The group quickly turned around to go back to the castle, but after a few minutes of walking, Johnny stopped again and gave a hum.

“Are we lost?” Max asked, not really expecting any answer other than _yes_. Johnny’s sheepish grin was enough of an answer for him. He sighed loudly.

“Let’s try to find our way back,” Ollie suggested, and Max was thankful for the apparent sound mind within Johnny group of eccentric people. “I think we went that way,” the huge boy pointed to a direction.

“No, that way,” Isaac argued, pointing at another direction.

“Wasn’t it that way?” Stephen pointed to yet another direction.

Silence draped over them as panic began to sink in. They were lost, alone, in the dark woods. The Forbidden Forest, to be exact, which was _forbidden_ because it had some _dangerous things_ living in it.

The sound of something coming near made Max blink. He strained his ears, signaling to the others to stay quiet as he listened. It sounded like the clopping of a horse. But since this was the wizarding world, Max doubted it was actually a horse. He wasn’t even sure the wizards actually _knew_ such mundane animal existed.

The sound went closer still. All heads turned to where it came from. There, between the trees, stood the silhouette of something that looked human, but with four legged animal for its lower body.

The panic broke immediately and they screamed, scattering away to all directions.

Max had no idea where he was running to. For him, there was only one direction, and that was _away_. From the weird man-animal that he saw, of course, not from the castle. He sure hoped he’d end up going to the castle’s direction, but the odds of that happening sure was low. He wasn’t really hoping for that.

Then, he tripped over a protruding tree root and fell face first to the ground, all the while berating himself for it because _For God’s sake, Max, are you some clumsy shoujo anime protagonist?_  But the hard ground that he was waiting for never came. Instead, there was a weird earthen slide leading down underground. It wasn’t deep, not really, and he had the chance to roll down the hole instead of landing on his face and breaking his nose like he worried he would be.

He groaned as he pulled himself up, cursing whatever rotten luck he had that he ended up wherever he was. He didn’t really care where he was, he just wanted to go back to the castle and sleep for a hundred years because one night surely won’t be enough given the absurdity of the night he just had. He opened his eyes to look around and froze. Suddenly he cared _a whole lot_ more about where he was, because right in front of him was a _giant freaking hairy spider with its eyes staring at him_. His mind raced at once, remembering what spiders eat, and when he realized it was other insects he immediately felt all his energy leaving his being. This spider, which was pretty much about the same size at him, probably would think that he was a delicious meal.

The spider’s fangs clicked together. Max opened his mouth to scream loudly.

And then, all of a sudden, a slick and long huge, snake-like thing coiled around his waist and pulled him outside. He choked on the air he breathed and immediately felt uncomfortable when he realized he was airborne. He looked down nervously, only to regret his decision when he realized just how far up he was. So he looked up again, and to his shock saw something glowing red and blue.

They were eyes. A row of glowing red eyes, and below it a row of glowing blue eyes, bright and almost blinding, but once Max managed to get himself used to the glow he found it not too bright. He froze at once, mind whirring in fear and curiosity, and his eyes quickly examined the eyes. Then he realized that below the row of blue eyes was a row of drooling, sharp pointy teeth. The curiosity was gone instantly and replaced by something that he was sure rabbits felt when a wolf cornered them. Was it fear? It was more intense than fear.

He took a shaky breath as he looked at the giant snake-like thing. Metal scraps covered its body, as though it was metal. He gulped. “H-hullo,” he muttered.

The giant metal-snake moved, like it was tilting its head. It gave a low growl, but there was no malice in it, only something akin of curiosity. Maybe it was like the purr of a cat? Max didn’t know, and wasn’t sure he wanted to know. The snake might just be assessing how tasty he would be, after all.

“D-do you understand what I’m saying?” Max decided to keep talking. “C-can you maybe p-put me down?”

The snake only growl-maybe-purr some more.

Well, maybe Max should take a more aggressive approach. “A-alright, now, you… snake-metal. You… scrapdragon,” he muttered.

The snake suddenly snapped into attention, staring with him in focus.

“Is that what I should call you? Scrapdragon?” there was no answer, but he felt like he now got the snake’s full and undivided attention. “Okay, that’s what I’ll call you then. Put me down, now.”

The snake growl-purred some more and moved its face closer to Max’s, so close that it almost felt invading. He closed his eyes and arched his back as far back as possible. He would have swatted, but the snake’s coiling tail around his waist that also incidentally bound his arms on his body together made it impossible.

But then the snake growl-purred again and rubbed its large, somewhat steely and rough and yet nice to the touch anyway face to Max’s cheek. The boy blinked and glanced at it. “What,” he muttered flatly, failing to find any other word capable of summing up what he felt right then.

There was a sudden rustle from behind. The snake snapped its attention to it and let out a loud, bellowing roar that left Max’s ears ringing. And then he was dropped to the ground – in hurry, but surprisingly gently – as the apparently humongous snake-like creature dashed into a deeper part of the forest. Max was left there, rubbing his ears, sitting on a cold ground wondering about how he should feel about the whole thing.

He jumped when he felt a hand tapping his shoulder, and he would forever deny that he had screamed at that moment. He whirled around and to his surprise saw Johnny and the gang plus Isaac all staring at him. Isaac said something to him, but he couldn’t hear it. “What?” he asked instead.

Isaac repeated, louder, but the ringing in his ears didn’t help. “Sorry, a giant snake just roared at my face and my ears can’t really hear clearly, so you better say it louder.”

Isaac did. “ _Are you okay?_ ”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

“ _Great. RJ climbed a tree. Castle. There._ ” Isaac pointed to his left.

The group then walked back to the castle. The trudge back was silent and awkward. They went to the forest looking for a fight (well, not exactly _all_ of them, per se) but ended up running away from a magical creature and felt that it was best to go back to the castle. It was stupid and childish, really.

Then again, they were ten.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long for them to reach the castle. They heaved a collective sigh of relief when they walked out of the trees, and the steps they took were a lot lighter. When they were close enough to see the door leading into the castle, though, the steps felt heavier again. Four figures were already standing there, waiting.

One of them began speaking, but Max’s ears were still ringing and even though he could hear muffled voices the words weren’t clear. He let the others handled the conversation.

At one point, though, the teacher with sunglasses ( _Who even wear sunglasses at night?_ ) said something. The first part of it seemed like _congratulations_ , if Max’s crappy lip reading skills were to be believed. The next part he couldn’t get, but the others groaned loudly in complaint that he immediately shushed. Confused, Max turned to Isaac.

The boy understood and shouted for him, “ _Fifteen points from each house plus detention._ ”

Well. Max wasn’t sure if this was something he could be proud about or not. After all, who scored a detention right after they get into a school?

**Author's Note:**

> This took me way longer than I expected this would. I think it was okay though. Keyword being I think.
> 
> This was originally someone's headcanon but somewhere along the way the story decided to take reign and it turned out the way it is now.


End file.
